Madame Cézanne: the unsung hero of her husband's art - Telegraph Culture Madame Cézanne: the unsung hero of her husband's art A new exhibition reveals the importance that Hortense Fiquet, Cézanne's wife and muse, played in developing her husband's art One of Cézanne's 29 known portraits of his wife: Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory, 1891 Photo: COURTESY OF METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART By Kathryn Hughes Comments The face that stares out from the painting is not beautiful, not quite. Pale and oval as a perfect egg, it is topped off with a helmet of auburn hair. Nor, with slits for eyes and a dash for a mouth, is it a face that begs to be loved or understood. None the less, it remains one of the most instantly recognisable images of the late 19th century, staring out of 29 extraordinary works of art that changed painting for ever. The face belongs to Hortense Fiquet, the woman whom Paul Cézanne married then ignored, despised and loved in equal measure. Above all, though, he depended on her.

Not just as 19th-century artists depended on their wives to arrange the studio and keep visitors at bay – for in truth Hortense was never very good at those things. What Cézanne demanded from Hortense was her extraordinary face, which he painted over and over, until he had absorbed its odd geometry and was able to remake it on canvas in a series of images that contemporaries described simultaneously as “monstrosities” and “masterpieces”. Now these paintings will go on show as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s blockbuster exhibition “Madame Cézanne”, opening on 19 November. In the early days his friends couldn’t see why he bothered. According to them, Hortense Fiquet was nothing special, with her mean little mouth and asymmetric eyes. But in the sharp angles and planes of her pale profile and high hairline Cézanne saw the chance to develop an early abstract art that released painting from its duty to represent reality. While contemporaries such as Manet and Renoir continued to draw women as hazy erotic objects, out and about in the pleasure grounds of Paris, Cézanne rendered Hortense as a still life, as if she were a bowl of apples.

Related Articles Louise Bourgeois' New York home 15 Jun 2014 One of the earliest surviving paintings that Cézanne made of Hortense shows this principle at work. In Madame Cézanne Leaning on a Table (c1873-74), the young woman sits with her elbow resting on a table. Her dull green dress smudges into the background’s murky palette. What stands out are the sharp horizontals of the table, the vertical of the chair and door jamb, and the pattern made by her face. It is a distinct pink oval, the elliptical shape exaggerated by the heavy crown of chestnut hair piled on top. In a gesture that anticipates Picasso by 35 years, Cézanne has turned Hortense into a series of triangles, ovals and oblongs. In the painting, the fact that Hortense’s downcast eyes are nothing more than dark dots emphasises a lack of intimacy between the artist and model. And yet, confusingly, the domestic setting suggests this is a painting born of familiarity.

The odd couple had met in the late 1860s when Cézanne, the son of a prosperous banker from Provence, was studying painting in Paris. Hortense, a decade younger, was a bookbinder who modelled for extra cash. They started living together early on, and a score of tender sketches by Cézanne show his lover caught in informal moments: sewing, sleeping or simply staring into space. Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress, 1888 - 1890 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) This evidence of everyday intimacy would have come as a surprise to Cézanne’s friends, who were determined to see Hortense as a bit of household furniture at best and, at worst, as a millstone around his neck. In part this was because of the way Cézanne’s paintings habitually rendered his lover’s features as a mask, with little attention paid to her inner life.

In works such as Portrait of Madame Cézanne (c1877), the focus is entirely on the shape made by her severe centre parting, while in a similarly titled portrait from 10 years later, it’s the sweep of her profiled jaw that is his real subject. As far as contemporaries were concerned, Hortense remained a creature of parts, rather than a relatable whole. This lack of “personality” on the canvas gave rise to the rumour that Cézanne’s mistress/model was self-absorbed, aloof, the opposite of how a painter’s muse should be. Zola, who had known Cézanne since schooldays, wrote a thinly disguised novel about Cézanne in 1886 called The Masterpiece in which Hortense/Christine is described as mere “dust”, a useful shape rather than a real person. Roger Fry, the critic who did so much to introduce Cézanne’s work to Britain, was blunter, calling her a “sour-looking bitch”. In fact, Hortense had every reason to look sour. Despite being entirely necessary to Cézanne’s extraordinary art, she spent most of her long life in oblivion.

Cézanne did not start to earn a living from his painting until he was in his late fifties – he was dependent on a small stipend from his well-to-do family. For that reason, he kept Hortense’s existence secret, even failing to inform his parents when she gave birth to a boy in 1872. On one occasion Cézanne’s father opened one of his son’s letters and read a reference to “Madame Cézanne and Little Paul”. Only a great deal of quick talking managed to persuade the old man that his fortysomething son was not leading an “irregular” life and should continue to receive his monthly allowance. All this subterfuge might have been bearable if Cézanne had been committed to Hortense and their son. In fact, he often lived apart from them, claiming that he needed the freedom to go out into the countryside and paint as the mood took him. And, far from being alienated from his stuffily bourgeois family, the artist gave every sign of being more attached to them than he was to his partner and child.

He kept a studio on the ground floor of the family mansion, and commuted from his mother’s house in nearby L’Estaque to the industrial port of Marseilles where he had found lodgings for Hortense and little Paul. There was, though, one crucial thing that Hortense could give Cézanne that no one else could. He expected his sitters to hold still for hours at a time, and it was not unknown for him to scream, “You wretch! You’ve spoilt the pose!” Hortense, uniquely, had mastered the art of never twitching a muscle when required to sit in the same position for days. Nor did she raise an eyebrow when her lover insisted on painting what appeared to be the same picture over and over again. In a famous suite of four portraits, executed within a few months, Hortense appears in the same shawl-collared red dress. The background in each is similar too: a smoky grey-blue wall that historians have identified as one in the Parisian apartment where Cézanne and Hortense lived in the late 1880s.

The effect of the nondescript background is to throw the focus on the shapes made by Hortense in her red dress, an arrangement of squares and triangles, crowned by that familiar pale oval face with its severely geometric crown. Only in the final picture, which now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, do you get a sense of the slumped shoulders and aching calves that must have been part of the texture of Hortense Fiquet’s everyday life with Paul Cézanne. Madame Cézanne, painted around 1885 - 1887 (Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York) In hindsight this sequence of red-dress portraits marks a turning-point in the history of art. For it is the moment at which painting moved further away from being concerned simply with picture-making towards providing a commentary on that process. In these portraits Cézanne doesn’t simply experiment with form, using Hortense as a familiar collection of shapes and angles, he also offers a meditation on the similarities and variations that come with repetition, the physical demands of holding a pose, the structural geometry required to make an image work. Even so, the critics were still not convinced.

It would take another seven years before Cézanne was offered a one-man exhibition. In 1895 the Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard showed a broad sweep of his work, which featured at least three portraits of Hortense, showing her wearing a green hat, a blue striped dress, and sitting in a conservatory. “The advent of these masterpieces, or of these monstrosities, whichever you prefer,” Vollard later commented, “created the most profound excitement among the enlightened collectors and eclectics who… came and went every day in front of the shop windows in Rue Laffitte.” Whether Hortense Fiquet believed herself to be involved in the creation of masterpieces or monstrosities isn’t clear. The chances are, said Matisse years later, that she probably didn’t care either way. What mattered to her was that she finally had the expectation of a comfortable existence. In 1886, and after 17 years together, Cézanne married Hortense Fiquet in the presence of his parents. Hurtfully, though, he told anyone who would listen that he no longer had any feelings for his bride, whose sharp angles had begun to soften in middle age.

Their marriage was purely to ensure an inheritance for young Paul, on whom Cézanne doted. Following the death of his father later that same year, Cézanne left Hortense and moved in with his mother and sisters, declaring, “My wife only cares for Switzerland and lemonade.” It was a nasty remark, a reference to the fact that Hortense had been born near the French-Swiss border. Now that money was easier she liked nothing more than holidaying in picturesque Alpine towns where she could go shopping for the fashionable clothes she had grown to love, visit cafés and gamble in the local casinos. Cézanne, by contrast, preferred to stay in Provence, painting his native landscape over and over again, showing that same intensity with which he had once painted Hortense, the girl whose centre parting had caught his eye and who had come as close as anyone ever did to capturing his heart.

“Madame Cézanne” opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on 19 November Famous Paintings Reviewed | Analysis of Art History Masterpieces | Cezanne paintings Tweet Fans of Cezanne paintings recognize various motifs that recur in his work - arrays of fruit, a plaster cast of Cupid, the view of Mont Sainte-Victoire (see some of these famous Cezanne paintings ). One frequent theme, however, has not received its due: portraits of his wife. This changed with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition, Madame Cezanne, the first show of drawings, watercolors and paintings of his wife, Hortense Fiquet (1850-1922). Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) created 29 Madame Cezanne portraits, more portraits than of any other model (except himself) during his prolific and lengthy career. An astounding 24 of these Madame Cezanne paintings are exhibited in this gem (a somewhat sleeper) of a show. Paul Cezanne. Young Woman with Loosened Hair, ca. 1873-74.

Oil on canvas, 4 3/8" by 6". Private collection, on loan to Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen. Why Has Madame Cezanne Been Unknown? Cezanne met her in Paris in 1869, and three years later, she was modelling for him (see Young Woman with Loosened Hair, right). Fearing disapproval and loss of financial support from his overbearing father, Cezanne closeted his relationship with Hortense and his out-of-wedlock son, Paul. It was 17 years later that they married. Hortense didn't fare well with her husband's friends or critics, either: some referred to her as "La Boule" (the ball); the art historian John Rewald contended that she neither influenced nor understood her husband's art; and the English art historian Roger Fry dismissed "that sour bitch of a Madame" as the reason her husband's landscape paintings were unsuccessful. (History doesn't record whether Fry gave Hortense credit for any of the successful paintings, but an educated guess suggests not). And then there were critics who cited her stiffness, impentrable gaze and unsmiling demeanor.

Paul Cezanne. Madame Cezanne Leaning on a Table, ca. 1873-1874. Oil on canvas, 18 1/8" by 15". Private collection, care of Faggionato, London. What the Exhibition Reveals Because there are so few relics of Hortense Fiquet's life - for instance, only two letters she wrote have survived - there was ample room for conjecture. Even if Hortense did not comprehend her husband's aesthetics (and she was far from alone on that front), she deserves enormous credit for her commitment as a model, a sacrifice that was even acknowledged by John Rewald: Cezanne rarely painted any other woman, and it must have entailed considerable sacrifice on the part of his lively and talkative wife to lend herself to the endless sittings he inflicted on her. (1) Further, we know through the French art dealer Ambroise Vollard that Cezanne would often pause 20 minutes between brushstokes. Who can hold a smile that long? Madame Cezanne Paintings Viewing these paintings, drawings and watercolors as a group reveals an inescapable tenderness in the attention taken in portraying her.

That he perceives form in terms of color relationships is clearly revealled in Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair. Paul Cezanne. Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair, ca. 1877. Oil on canvas, 28 1/2" by 22". Museum of Fine Art, Boston. Hues of blue, gray, green, violet and brown interrelate so freely in the canvas that Hortense's flesh tones hint of the same palette as her jacket bodice and the patterned wallpaper. The loose, fluid quality of the brushstrokes are juxtaposed against her implacable, stoic gaze; with any other demeanor, she would compete with the other energy in the canvas. Instead, she is secondary to the imposing red chair and her voluminous striped skirt. It feels more calculated than coincidental. Question Which of these portraits do you find most complling - which reveals more of Hortense Fiquet's personality, if any do? These three Madame Cezanne paintings alone are reason enough to visit this show, which runs through March 15, 2015.

(And if you're at the Met, use the ebook, Famous Paintings at the Met to explore other masterpieces there!) Stay tuned for more reasons to see this show in the next post - the four "Red Dress" paintings, exhibited together for the first time since they left Cezanne's studio! (1) Madame Cezanne by Dita Amory, page 10. Paul Cézanne Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Web Services & Hosting by The Computer Studio | Designed by DesArtLab Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism refers to a number of styles that emerged in reaction to Impressionism in the 1880s. The movement encompassed Symbolism and Neo-Impressionism before ceding to Fauvism around 1905. Its artists turned away from effects of light and atmosphere to explore new avenues such as color theory and personal feeling, often using colors and forms in intense and expressive ways. Impressionism Impressionism A movement in painting that first surfaced in France in the 1860s, it sought new ways to describe effects of light and movement, often using rich colors.

The Impressionists were drawn to modern life and often painted the city, but they also captured landscapes and scenes of middle-class leisure-taking in the suburbs. Fauvism Fauvism Fauvism was an early twentieth-century art movement founded by Henri Matisse and André Derain. Labeled as "wild beasts", Fauve artists favored vibrant colors and winding gestural strokes across the canvas. Cubism Cubism Cubism was developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque between 1907-1911, and it continued to be highly influential long after its decline. This classic phase has two stages: 'Analytic', in which forms seem to be 'analyzed' and fragmented; and 'Synthetic', in which pre-existing materials such as newspaper and wood veneer are collaged to the surface of the canvas. Expressionism Expressionism Expressionism is a broad term for a host of movements in early twentieth-century Germany and beyond, from Die Brücke (1905) and Der Blaue Reiter (1911) to the early Neue Sachlichkeit painters in the 1920s and '30s.

Many Expressionists used vivid colors and abstracted forms to create spiritually or psychologically intense works, while others focused on depictions of war, alienation, and the modern city. Titian Titian Titian was the leading painter of the Venetian school in sixteenth century Italy, spanning a more than sixty-year career. His wide range of subject matter and deep interest in color has heavily influenced further developments in Western art. Peter Paul Rubens Peter Paul Rubens Peter Paul Rubens was a seventeenth-century Baroque artist who painted richly-toned allegories, history cycles, and religious scenes. His works are often populated by fleshy female nudes and figures in dramatic, twisting postures. Michelangelo Michelangelo Michelangelo was a Renaissance artist working in Italy in the sixteenth century. Although first a sculptor, he is perhaps best known for his large-scale painted frescos in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painter. Known as the "Father of Impressionism," he used his own painterly style to depict urban daily life, landscapes, and rural scenes.

Claude Monet Claude Monet Claude Monet was a French artist who helped pioneer the painterly effects and emphasis on light, atmosphere, and plein air technique that became hallmarks of Impressionism. He is especially known for his series of haystacks and cathedrals at different times of day, and for his late Waterlilies. Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the leading figures of French Impressionism during the late-nineteenth century. Renoir tended to favor outdoor scenes, gardens bathed in sunlight, and large gatherings of people. Known as a master of light, shadow and color, Renoir was also highly esteemed for his depiction of natural movement on the canvas. In terms of the French Impressionists' lasting popularity and fame, Renoir is perhaps second only to Monet. The Academy of Art The Academy of Art An academy is an institution where artists receive training and where they can exhibit their work. Academies flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as places to foster national schools of art, and traditionally their brightest stars received state patronage.

However, they declined in the late nineteenth century, when artists rejected their out-moded standards as "academic." Edouard Manet Edouard Manet Edouard Manet was a French painter and a prominent figure in the mid-nineteenth-century Realist movement of French art. Manet's paintings are considered among the first works of art in the modern era, due to his rough painting style and absence of idealism in his figures. Manet was a close friend of and major influence on younger artists who founded Impressionism such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso Picasso dominated European painting in the first half of the last century, and remains perhaps the century's most important, prolifically inventive, and versatile artist. Alongside Georges Braque, he pioneered Cubism. He also made significant contributions to Surrealist painting and media such as collage, welded sculpture, and ceramics. Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionism A tendency among New York painters of the late 1940s and '50s, all of whom were committed to an expressive art of profound emotion and universal themes.

The movement embraced the gestural abstraction of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, and the color field painting of Mark Rothko and others. It blended elements of Surrealism and abstract art in an effort to create a new style fitted to the postwar mood of anxiety and trauma. Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix was a mid-nineteenth-century French painter and pioneer of European Modernist painting. Known primarily as a Romantic, Delacroix's paintings were passionate in their depictions of love, war and human sensuality, earning the artist both praise and controversy in his time. His preoccupation with color-induced optical effects and use of expressive brushstrokes were crucial influences on Impressionism and Pointillism. Theodore Gericault Theodore Gericault Theodore Gericault was a French painter and lithographer during the early nineteenth century. Heavily influenced by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and the Baroque paintings of Velasquez, Gericault became a pioneer in the Romantic period of French painting. Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet was a French painter and chief figure in the Realist movement of the mid-nineteenth century.

His paintings often contained an emotional bleakness, and were praised for their precision and use of light. Along with Delacroix, Courbet was a key influence on the Impressionists. Ambroise Vollard Ambroise Vollard Ambroise Vollard was an important dealer, collector, and arts patron in late nineteenth-centry and early twentieth-century Paris. His interests were diverse, spanning Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, and modernism, and included such artists as Renoir, Cézanne, Gaugin, Matisse, and Picasso. Victor Chocquet Victor Chocquet Victor Chocquet was a French art collector and patron in the late nineteenth century. After visiting a show of Impressionist paintings in 1875, Chocquet commissioned paintings by Renoir and Cézanne, among others, and in the process became very wealthy through his large collections of Impressionist works. Julien 'Pere' Tanguy Julien 'Pere' Tanguy Julien 'Pere' Tanguy was a French color grinder and salesman of prints and art supplies.

Tanguy associated with many of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and was the chief supplier for artists such as Monet and Sisley, and a close friend of Vincent van Gogh. Emile Zola Emile Zola Emile Zola was a nineteenth-century French novelist, playwright, essayist and political activist. He was also the self-proclaimed leader of literary French Naturalism. As one of the leading cultural figures in France, Zola was close with the likes of Manet and Cézanne, and was the favorite writer of Vincent van Gogh. Japonisme Japonisme Japonisme describes the influence of Japanese art, especially woodblock prints, on French artists in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many Post-Impressionists were influenced by the flat blocks of color, the emphasis on design, and the simple, everyday subject matter. Romanticism Romanticism Romanticism was a nineteenth-century movement that celebrated the powers of emotion and intuition over rational analysis or classical ideals. Romantic artists emphasized awe, beauty, and the sublime in their works, which frequently charted the darker or chaotic sides of human life.

Realism Realism Realism is an approach to art that stresses the naturalistic representation of things, the look of objects and figures in ordinary life. It emerged as a distinct movement in the mid-nineteenth century, in opposition to the idealistic, sometimes mythical subjects that were then popular, but it can be traced back to sixteenth-century Dutch art and forward into twentieth-century styles such as Social Realism. Pointillism Pointillism Pointillism is a mode of art-making, first developed in 1880s France, in which all of the paint is applied to the surface as tiny points or daubs of color. Based on the laws of color theory, pointillism relies on the viewer's eye to mix the disparate dots into the lines, shapes, shadings, and color ranges of the full scene. Henri Matisse Henri Matisse Henri Matisse was a French painter and sculptor who helped forge modern art. From his early Fauvist works to his late cutouts, he emphasized expansive fields of color, the expressive potential of gesture, and the sensuality inherent in art-making.

Georges Braque Georges Braque Georges Braque was a modern French painter who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed analytic Cubism and Cubist collage in the early twentieth century. Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Kandinsky A member of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, and later a teacher at the Bauhaus, Kandinsky is best known for his pioneering breakthrough into expressive abstraction in 1913. His work prefigures that of the American Abstract Expressionists. Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter and a major influence on the development of Abstract Expressionism. In his own art he fused elements of Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism, and was close with key figures central to New York's burgeoning abstrct art scene, such as John Graham, Stuart Davis and Willem de Kooning. Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein was an American writer and supporter of the arts whose Paris salons were key sites for avant-garde art in the early twentieth century. She built one of the earliest collections of modern art, including works by Matisse, Picasso, Braque, and others.

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer who published the pioneering journal Camera Work. His gallery 291 was a locus for modern artists in America. Paul Cezanne - Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses - Fine Art Giclee codex Paul Cï¿½zanne (1839-1906) Visionary ahead of his time, Cezanne's innovative style, use of perspective, composition and color profoundly influenced 20th century art. Picasso developed Cezanne's planar compositions into cubism, and Matisse greatly admired his use of color. He used color with passion and creativity, giving his brush strokes structure, solidity, durability. Pablo Picasso said the following of the artist "My one and only master . . . Cezanne was like the father of us all". Cezanne is therefore often described as the "father of modern art". Unfortunately, Cezanne was the ultimate outsider and misunderstood during most of his life. Success came little and late, although young promising painters came to visit him during his last years.

Paul Cezanne was the son of a wealthy banker in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. Cezanne develops artistic interest at an early age and joins his boyhood companion and author Emile Zola in Paris in 1861, after many disputes with his father over his desire to dedicate himself to painting. Cezanne's stay in Paris lasted only six months. Though attracted by the more radical art forms in Paris, admiring the innovating works by Eugï¿½ne Delacroix, Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet, he destroys many canvases during depressive moments and returns home full of self-doubt. A year spent working with his father, however, convinced him to try a painter's life again. Cezanne's early works were dark and composed of heavy, fluid pigment suggesting the moody, romantic expression of previous generations. Cezanne returns to Paris suffering a new defeat when failing the entrance exam for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Worse, his paintings are rejected by the Salon. Thanks to Pissarro, he is introduced to Impressionist painters such as Manet and Degas.

At 30, Cezanne changes his style and his habits. He meets Hortense Fiquet who becomes his mistress for many years. The black and morbid atmosphere of his painting gradually changes as he concentrates on landscape subjects. This period is also known as "constructive", characterized by the grouping of parallel, hatched brushstrokes that have the power to build a feeling of mass. After the birth of his son, Cezanne moved with his family to Pontoise, where Pissarro lived. For two years the two men spent long periods together. Pissarro introduces him to Impressionist painting and his work is finally exhibited together with other Impressionist works in 1874. For many years, still-lifes and landscapes were Cezanne's main topics. Composing more than 200 still-life paintings, Cezanne wants to 'conquer Paris with an apple'. 'Apples and Oranges' is one of his most famous still-life compositions.

Applying the same methodical analysis to these works as he did with his landscapes, Cezanne records the slightest variations in tone and color observed over long periods as well as the forms from empirical geometry he considered the most frequent in nature - the 'cylinder, sphere and the cone'. details Contents: When you order, you will receive the print, numbered by the printmaker, and a certificate of authenticity. Prints are guaranteed, please follow recommended mounting instructions. Money back guarantee if not satisfied. The printmaker represents that this edition is limited to 750 and available in 1 size, 24" x 30". These prints differ from other prints of old masters in the following ways: 1. They are printed with archival pigment on archival paper, not on poster paper with offset ink. 2. They are hand printed by the printmaker. 3. They are Limited Editions. 4. The profit from the sale of these editions will be used to help build a creative think tank. The digital file will remain in control of the printmaker, for the exclusive use by the printmaker to replace damaged artwork, thereby guaranteeing the purchaser of his/her investment.

No further reproduced giclee prints of the original will be made at any size, or by any other reproduction method to the general public, or other organization [the only exception to this is a limited edition book of the prints. No individual prints will be issued]. Mating and framing is not included. Specify only 100% cotton rag mats and archival mounting methods to ensure the integrity of the print when framing. Paper: 100% cotton acid-free archival fine art paper for all giclee prints. Thank you for your support. data sheet Paul Cezanne - (1839 - 1906) - French Post Impressionist Cezanne dies of pneumonia on October 22 after getting soaked in a storm. 1907 A retrospective exhibition of Cezanne's paintings is held at the Autumn Salon in Paris. On January 19, 1839 Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence to a successful retailer and his mistress. Cezanne's domineering father Louis-Auguste Cezanne, and his mother Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Auburt, did not marry until Paul was five.

This may well have branded him with the stigma of illegitimacy causing him discomfort as a child. At 13 Cezanne attended Bourbon College in Aix where he met Emile Zola (who went on to be a famous novelist). This friendship was to last almost a lifetime. Cezanne attended classes at a local drawing academy. When Zola moved to Paris to study he sent letters to Cezanne filling him with the desire to go to Paris to paint. Cezanne's uncomfortable relationship with his father made it difficult to approach him about his dreams. Louise-Auguste was not interested in art and desired his son to gain a worthy profession. In 1859 Jas de Bouffan, an impressive 18th-century manor became the family home and Cezanne spent a year studying law. He was a successful scholar passing all his first examinations. His desire to go to Paris, however, finally overwhelmed his fear of his father and he approached him confessing his wishes to become an artist. His appeals were met with disdain. It was not until April 1861 that his father conceded and allowed his removal to Paris, supplying him with a basic allowance for his expenses.

Cezanne's stay in Paris lasted only six months. He destroyed many canvases during bouts of black depression and returned home full of self-doubt rejecting his chosen career. A year spent working with his father, however, convinced him to try a painter's life again. Cezanne returned to Paris suffering a further set-back when he failed the entrance exam for the official painting school - the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His paintings were also rejected by the Salon. Pissarro introduced Cezanne to Impressionist painters such as Manet and Degas. He gained a reputation for being an eccentric and quite odd after exhibiting strange antisocial behaviours such as refusing to shake hands with Manet giving the excuse that he (Cezanne) hadn't washed for eight days. At 30 Cezanne seemed to turn a corner with his art. He changed his style and his habits. He met Hortense Fiquet. She became his mistress. Although they seemed to be very different, their relationship, for a long time kept secret from the artist's father, lasted for many years. The focus of Cezanne's art which had previously been black and morbid, gradually changed and he began to concentrate on landscape subjects.

After the birth of his son (also hidden from the artist's father), Cezanne moved with his family to Pontoise, where Pissarro lived. Over the next two years the two men worked together. Staying first at Pontoise and then at Auvers nearby, Cezanne spent long periods with Pissarro, who was nine years older. Pissarro was like a father figure and mentor introducing to Cezannne the techniques of Impressionist painting. Cezanne's work was then exhibited alongside other Impressionist works in 1874. Pissarro's influence was important in Cezanne's artistic development. His palette lightened somewhat and he remained throughout his career devoted to the practice of painting directly from nature. However Cezanne reacted against the lack of structure in the Impressionist paintings and said that he intended to make Impressionism into "something solid and durable, like the art of the museums". He did indeed move decisively beyond Impressionism and is placed alongside the Post-Impressionist artists Seurat, Van Gogh and Gauguin. For many years still-lifes and landscapes were Cezanne's preoccupation.

Completing more than 200 still-life compostions in his lifetime, Cezanne wanted to 'conquer Paris with an apple', and become famous for his still life paintings. 'Apples and Oranges' is one of his most well known still-life compositions. Applying the same methodical analysis to these works as he did with his landscapes Cezanne was concerned with recording minute variations in tone and colour observed over long periods as well as the forms from empirical geometry he considered the most frequent in nature - the 'cylinder, sphere and the cone'. In 1881 Cezanne's brother-in-law bought a house situated on a hill overlooking the Arc valley with the mountain of Saint-Victoire in the distance. Mont Sainte-Victoire became one of his favourite subjects. It was the essence of all that he had felt had eluded the Impressionists - firmness, solidity, permanence. 1886 saw the publication of Emile Zola's novel L'Oeuvre, the main character of which was a failed artist and bore many resemblances to Cezanne. The artist was deeply hurt and ended his friendship with Zola.

In the same year, Cezanne ended the deception and revealed the existense of his family to his father and mother. He then married Hortense. Later, in October, Cezanne's father died leaving his son an inheritence which made him wealthy and independent. The next few years saw Cezanne become increasingly withdrawn. His family lived in Paris while he stayed in Aix, with his sister Marie. He visited Paris, less and less and stopped sending paintings to the Salon preferring to live the life of a recluse. It seemed that he was almost forgotten, some younger artists who had become interested in his work had assumed that he was dead. In his late fifties Cezanne's paintings finally began to attract the attention they deserved. In 1895, Ambroise Vollard, the famous art dealer, organised an exhibit of Cezanne's work in Paris. It had been 20 years since his work had been seen in the French capital. There were murmers of apreciation and acceptance of his genious. Vollard then, in 1897, bought every painting from Cezanne's studio in Fontainebleu.

Young admirers began to travel to Aix to see him at work. Cezanne's work continued to evolve. He revisited subjects over and over again each time varying his approach. 'The Great Bathers' a monumental piece, showing figures of women in the landscape is a revision of a favourite subject, first attempted in 1875. Jas de Bouffan had to be sold in 1899 to settle Cezanne's mother's estate. He moved to a flat in Aix and later buit a studio on the hill-side of the Chemin des Lauves outside Aix. He walked there to work each day. Though his health detriorated, in later years, Cezanne still religiously went to work everyday. Usually he travelled by carriage as the distance was to much of a strain for him to walk. One day, angered by the increase in the fare, his decided to walk and was caught in a downpour. The chill that resulted subsequently became pneumonia and a week later, on 22 October 1906, Cezanne was dead. The art of Paul Cezanne is considered today as being of enormous importance to the developoment of modern art.

From his search for underlying structure of the composition came Cubism and then Abstraction. Cezanne's use of colour as tone and his obsession with the formal elements of composition made it possible for artists who came after to question what they saw and how they represented what they saw on their canvas. Pablo Picasso said the following of the artist "My one and only master . . . Cezanne was like the father of us all". Cezanne is therefore often described as the "father of modern art". Whether such and accolade is justifed or not the critics can judge, it is clear, however that Cezanne was a visionary ahead of his time. The art historian Lawrence Gowing once remarked that Cezanne was 'reaching out for a kind of modernity which does not exist, and still does not'. Paul Cezanne | artble.com Paul Cezanne Chateau Noir Paul Cezanne Paul Cézanne was a nineteenth century artist whose work was misunderstood by his contemporaries.

A shy man who worked a great deal in Aix-en-Provence, the home town where he was born and raised, Cézanne moved Paris when he was young and, despite his father's wishes, pursued a career in art rather than law. Cézanne was a modern artist whose work was a precursor for Cubism and Fauvism. His compositions were usually dark in tone and he often chose to work inside rather than en plein air. Cézanne didn't receive critical acclaim until very late in his life and after his first solo exhibition. He never formed close friendships with many of his fellow artists but before he died there was a great deal of interest in his works. Paul Cezanne Artistic Context Three Skulls Paul Cezanne Paul Cézanne's modern style and technique was avant-garde and therefore misunderstood for many years. Even the other breakthrough artists of his era, the Impressionists, were dismissive of Cézanne's progressive style and method. After the first Impressionist exhibition many of them petitioned to have him banned from the other shows because Cézanne's compositions were too controversial.

Cézanne worked with thickly placed layers of paint and undefined forms and attempted to simplify everything into shapes that could be broken down. Although he was close with the Impressionist Camille Pissarro, and influenced by Pissarro's en plein air style of painting Cézanne was not an Impressionist. He was a highly modern artist who did not fit into any one category of painting style. His style was a precursor for the fauvism and cubism movements. Paul Cezanne Biography Emile Zola Paul Cézanne, 1904: "Drawing and color are not separate at all; in so far as you paint, you draw. The more the color harmonizes, the more exact the drawing becomes. When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also. The contrasts and relations of tones - there you have the secret of drawing and modeling". Camille Pissarro Paul Cezanne Early years: Paul Cézanne was born to a wealthy family in Aix-en-Provence, France. His father was a successful banker whose riches assisted Cézanne throughout his life and his mother was a romantic who supported her son's career.

In 1852 Cézanne entered the Collège Bourbon where he met his good friends Émile Zola and Baptistin Baille. The three were famously close for a long period of time. After a classical education in Aix-en-Provence Paul Cézanne's father wished him to become a lawyer. However after attending law school for two years (whilst receiving art lessons) he could not bear the thought of continuing his education and left for Paris. In Paris Paul Cézanne spent a large period of his time with Émile Zola, a French writer. He enrolled at the Académie Suisse, which is where he met his mentor, Camille Pissarro. After five months of trying to work as a painter in Paris, France, to no critical success, Cézanne returned to Aix-en-Provence at his father's request. In his home town Paul Cézanne enrolled at the local art school and attempted to work as a banker but was also unsuccessful in this venture. Consequently in 1862 he returned to Paris to work as a painter.

Disappointingly he failed the entrance exam to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts but continued to work between Paris and Aix-en-Provence and submitted many of his works to the Salon jury. By this time he was good friends with Impressionist painters Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro and had met his future wife. However, he also had a long-term mistress - Hortense Fiquet - and in the Prussian war Cézanne and Fiquet absconded from the Paris and stayed in L'Estaque, France, until 1871. Middle years: In 1872 Paul Cézanne was living in Pontoise, France with Hortense Fiquet and his newborn son Paul (whom his father did not know about). Cézanne was still enthusiastically working on his paintings and was spending time outside with his idol, Camille Pissarro. In Pontoise Paul Cézanne met Dr Paul Gachet, who was an admirer of his work and thus spent the years of 1872 to 1874 living at Gachet's home in Auvers-sur-Oise.

In 1873 Cézanne met Vincent van Gogh and in 1874 he exhibited at the Impressionist's first showcase. Cézanne's work was highly criticized along with the Impressionist's paintings but Cezanne's paintings were disliked by the other painters too. Cézanne's compositions from this period of working close to Camille Pissarro reveal that he was slightly influenced by the Impressionist's en plein air style of painting. In 1877 Cézanne showcased 16 of his paintings to a great deal of scorn from critics and vowed never again to show his work at an Impressionist's exhibition. Although still influenced by Pissarro's Impressionist style Cézanne continued to work inside his studio and didn't believe in always painting from nature. In the early 1880s Cezanne started to move even further away from the Impressionist's style of painting. He fell out with Emile Zola in 1886 because of his interpretation of Zola's novel, L'Oeuvre, and the two never saw each other again.

In 1886 Cezanne married his mistress and inherited a large estate from his father, meaning he never had to worry about making money from his art. Advanced years: In November 1895 Paul Cézanne held his first solo exhibition in Paris and Ambroise Vollard bought every artwork. He then moved to Aix-en-Provence permanently. In the early 1900s his work was shown all around Europe to wide critical acclaim but throughout his life Cézanne was shy and hostile towards other painters and he maintained this attitude. He died in October 1906 of pneumonia and is buried in the cemetery in Aix-en-Provence. Paul Cezanne Style and Technique Pot of Primroses with Fruit Paul Cezanne Paul Cézanne used heavy brush strokes during his early years and thickly layered paint onto the canvas. The texture of the compositions is tangible and the marks of his palette brush can be obviously discerned. Cézanne's early work has previously been called 'violent' in nature because of the hasty brush work. Before he became friends with Camille Pissarro Cézanne worked mainly within his studio, painting from his imagination.

However after meeting Pissarro Cézanne occasionally moved his painting outside and began painting from nature. As a result his style and technique became more structured although his brushstrokes were still thick and heavy. Also, his works became brighter in color (although he still preferred to work inside with darker shades). In the late 1870s the texture of Cézanne's compositions became smoother and he attempted to create form using his paintbrush. Rather than work from sketches he was influenced by Monet's ability to create shapes on the canvas and applied color with big, broad strokes. Many of Cézanne's compositions were left incomplete because of the difficulty of finishing a piece of art work. He took months to finish any piece and his style made working en plein air too challenging. Thus he returned to the studio and worked there instead. In his later years his style and technique continued to shift as he learned more about his craft. Method: Cézanne was highly analytical of his subjects and perceived them as different shapes that could be placed together to make an overall form. He created his works slowly, building upon each previous figure with a new outline.

Using this method it took Paul Cézanne months to finish a portrait or a still-life. This technique became such a problem that Cézanne was unable to use real flowers because they would wilt before he was able to finish his painting. Although Cézanne did use drawings and sketches before he placed his paintbrush to canvas a lot of the work was done on the canvas itself. He found working from nature to be extremely arduous and for him returning to the scene of a landscape was often more challenging than completing the painting itself. Cézanne's complicated method of painting explains why he often painted the same subject matter time and time again. Who or What Influenced Paul Cezanne Orchard in Bloom at Louveciennes Camille Pissarro Vase of Flowers Paul Cezanne Cézanne was influenced by Impressionism in the 1870s. As a modern artist who was being constantly rejected by the Salon jury he felt some affinity with the group. Furthermore although he was never an Impressionist, after working alongside Camille Pissarro and spending time with Claude Monet his color palette brightened up and he began to work en plein air.

Nonetheless after exhibiting with the Impressionists twice Cézanne ended his relationship with the group due to artistic differences. Camille Pissarro was one of Paul Cézanne's biggest influences and after spending time with him in 1872 Cézanne started to work outdoors with a wider range of colors. He met van Gogh around this time and was also influenced by his style. Consequently, Cezanne's brush strokes became less dense and more fluid in style. Compositions from this period clearly reveal that Cézanne's technique and subject matter was becoming Impressionistic. Even so his interest in working indoors persisted and Paul Cézanne created a number of still-life paintings of flowers. In the late 1870s Cézanne moved away from Impressionism for good with the use of heavy and dark colors, and he wished to analyze the scene before him rather than copy it as the Impressionists did. Throughout his life Cézanne became more and more influenced by nature and particularly the beauty of his home in Aix-en-Provence. He wanted to capture the part of nature that was constant rather than the surface beauty that changed with the seasons.

Paul Cezanne Works A portrait of Antony Valabrégue Date of Creation1866 Flowers Pablo Picasso Paul Cézanne was an artist who had a great number of followers in his later years. His work was modern before its time and after his solo exhibition in 1895 many younger artists were influenced by his style of painting in a geometric fashion. Although his work inspired followers Cezanne was nervous about meeting with them and was famously hostile toward uninvited visitors. Many see Paul Cézanne's work as the father of Modernism, Fauvism and Cubism. Emile Brenard: Emile Bernard was a Neo-Impressionist artist who was close friends with Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin . Working in the late 1880s he was suspended from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts because his work had 'too much feeling ' in it. Bernard's geometric style of painting was inspired by Paul Cézanne's method of breaking down nature into different shapes and analyzing people's faces as geometric forms. Maurice Denis: Maurice Denis was another painter who was influenced by Paul Cézanne.

Working in the early 1900s he was a part of the 'nabi' movement. Denis was one of the first artists who painted in a flat style that was so indicative of the modernists. Like Cézanne he did not believe in copying nature but rather interpreting it. Charles Camoin: Charles Camoin was a Fauvist who was in awe of Cézanne's individuality and modernist tendencies. A friend of Matisse, Camoin's works have been shown extensively in France. Not only did Paul Cézanne inspire younger painters but he also influenced writers and later painters such as Pablo Picasso. His influence on modern painting cannot be easily measured. Paul Cezanne Critical Reception Henri Matisse During life: Cézanne received little critical reception during his early years. As a young man his father was disparaging of his artistic aspirations and wanted him to concentrate on a career in banking. His mother, on the other hand, was encouraging of her son's ambitions and supported him from a young age. At the Impressionist's first showcase in 1874 the critical reception of Cézanne's work was particularly disparaging.

Alongside the other works in the exhibition Cézanne's paintings garnered poor reviews from the art critics. Even so the show was particularly hard for Cézanne because even the other artists were unable to understand his painting methods. Unlike many of the Impressionist artists every single painting Cézanne submitted to the jury was instantly rejected. In his career he only had one painting accepted into the Salon through remaining nameless and declaring himself a student of one of the jury's artists. Compounding Paul Cézanne's poor critical reception was his good friend Emile Zola who believed that Cézanne was a failure who would never amount to anything. Zola frequently described Cézanne's career as 'a waste'. This was not to say that Zola did not believe Cézanne was extremely talented, rather he did not see Cézanne as having fulfilled his potential. Nonetheless Cézanne did have some admirers namely Dr Paul Gauchet bought a number of his works as did the painter Paul Gauguin, who bought his piece from Tanguy.

Tanguy was for a long time the only art distributor who gave Paul Cézanne a good critical reception and was also one of the only people to exhibit Cézanne's work. It was only after Paul Cézanne's solo exhibition in 1895 that he began to receive an improved response. Younger artists began to cite Cézanne as one of their major influences and his work was exhibited throughout Europe. In 1900 his work was displayed and well-received at the Exposition Universelle and art critic Roger Marx wrote a glowing review of these paintings. After death: After his death in 1906 the critical reception of Cézanne's work flourished. In 1907 a posthumous exhibition was held at the Salon d'Automne and 56 of his works were exhibited. The collection received wide critical acclaim and was extremely popular. In 1922 Henry Moore was enormously impressed with Cézanne's The Large Bathers and said that the moment he saw the painting was one of the most significant in his life.

Cézanne is frequently cited as the precursor of modern painting and is seen to have influenced the Cubism and Fauvism movements. Many painters cite Cézanne as one of their biggest influences and his work can today sell for millions of dollars. Paul Cezanne Bibliography For more information on Cezanne and his artworks please refer to the following recommended sources. • Duchting, Hajo. Paul Cezanne. Taschen GmbH, 2009 • Loran, Erle. Cezanne's Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams and Photographs of His Motifs. University of California Press, 2006 • Hoog, Michel & Stonehewer, Rosemary. Cezanne: The First Modern Painter. Thames & Hudson, 1994 • Rewald, John. Cezanne: A Biography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. , 1996 • Simms, Matthew. Cezanne's Watercolors: Between Drawing and Painting. Yale University Press, 2008 • Smith, Paul. Interpreting Cezanne. Tate Publishing, 1996 Want a Printed Copy of These Books?

Question: Which painter married Hortense Fiquet and used her as the subject of many of his paintings?
Answer: PAUL CEZANNE